Robert Bruce Zoellick

Robert Bruce Zoellick was unanimously confirmed as President of the World Bank on June 25, 2007. Zoellick was nominated for the position on May 30, 2007, by President George W. Bush.

Profiles
At the time of his nomination, Zoellick was serving "an executive at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., where Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who will recommend candidates for the World Bank job to President George W. Bush, was chairman until June [1996]."

"The German government has told the Bush administration that it would support" Zoellick's nomination to head the World Bank. Zoellick "would serve a five-year term, subject to the approval of the bank's board", to replace Paul Wolfowitz, whose resignation is effective June 30, 2007.

Deputy Secretary of State
Zoellick was nominated February 10, 2005, by President George W. Bush to be Deputy Secretary of State vice Richard L. Armitage, who resigned. .

U.S. Trade Representative
Prior, Zoellick was appointed United States Trade Representative and assumed office on February 7, 2001. As a member Bush's Cabinet, he served with the rank of Ambassador. Zoellick is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as the Trilateral Commission, and was one of the signers of the January 26, 1998, Project for the New American Century (PNAC) letter to President William Jefferson Clinton.

Zoellick completed negotiations to bring China and Taiwan into the World Trade Organization (WTO), developed a strategy to launch new global trade negotiations at the WTO meeting at Doha, shepherded Congressional action on the Jordan Free Trade Agreement and the Vietnam Trade Agreement, and worked with Congress to pass the Trade Act of 2002, which included new Trade Promotion Authority.

Under Secretary of State for Economic and Agricultural Affairs and Counselor to the Department
"During President George Herbert Walker Bush's Administration, Bob Zoellick served with Secretary of State James Addison Baker III as Under Secretary of State for Economic and Agricultural Affairs, as well as Counselor to the Department (Under Secretary rank). In August 1992, Ambassador Zoellick was appointed White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Assistant to the President."

Other positions
He served in various positions at the Department of the Treasury from 1985 to 1988, including Counselor to Secretary James A. Baker III, Executive Secretary of the Department, and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions Policy. Zoellick was also appointed the President's personal representative, or Sherpa, for the G-7 Economic Summits in 1991 and 1992. After leaving government service, Ambassador Zoellick was appointed an Executive Vice President at Fannie Mae (1993-1997).

Zoellick has served as the John M. Olin Professor of National Security at the U.S. Naval Academy (1997-1998), Research Scholar at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy of Government at Harvard University, and Senior International Advisor to Goldman Sach's.

He also serves or has served as a board member on a number of private and public organizations: Alliance Capital, Said Holdings, and the Precursor Group; a member of the advisory boards of Enron and Viventures, a venture fund; as a Director of the Aspen Institute's Strategy Group, Council on Foreign Relations, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and the World Wildlife Advisory Council; and a member of Secretary William Sebastian Cohen's Defense Policy Board.

Zoellick was raised in Naperville, IL. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1975 from Swarthmore College and received his J.D. from the Harvard Law School and a Master of Public Policy degree from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in 1981.

On Climate Change
In an October 2007 speech to the National Press Club, Zoellick stated that "we are working with our Board to significantly step up our assistance to the international efforts to address climate change. At our upcoming Annual Meetings and at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali this December, I hope to outline a portfolio of ways the World Bank Group can help integrate the needs of development and low carbon growth. We need to focus particularly on the interests of developing countries, so that we can meet the challenge of climate change without slowing the growth that will help overcome poverty.

Other affiliations

 * Director Emeriti, European Institute
 * Main architect of CAFTA
 * A founder of the Business Humanitarian Forum
 * Member, Inter-American Dialogue

External articles

 * Kevin Watkins, "Trade hypocrisy: the problem with Robert Zoellick," Open Democracy, December 20, 2002.
 * Toni Solo, "Robert Zoellick and 'Wise Blood'. The Hazel Motes Approach to International Trade," CounterPunch, November 8, 2003.
 * Tom Barry, Robert Zoellick: a Bush Family Man, CounterPunch, January 14, 2005. Overview of Zoellick and compared to the neocons.
 * Michael Duffy, "The Man Who'll Replace Wolfowitz," TIME Magazine, May 30, 2007.